So I was walking with some friends years back, we were out on a weekend night downtown. We see some commotion up ahead and a crowd gathering. As we get closer, it’s pretty obvious that it’s a fight in progress. The first fighter we see is a large guy who looks like he lives in the gym, he’s pissed but he looks messed up, like he took some blows already. We were shocked when we see that he was fighting a woman who looked like any other average young woman for night out. Petite, blonde, mini skirt, barefoot because she kicked her heels off, she clearly didn’t look like a fighter. But when we saw her move, she was effortless, she dodged his every blow and connected multiple times with her punches and kicks. She hit damn hard too! The guy got more angry and sloppier as he realized he was losing to this woman in front of a crowd of people. It was over pretty quick, she knocked him over some empty chairs from an outdoor cafe and he decided not to get back up. He looked like hell and she just looked like she had a brisk workout, slightly out of breath but not a scratch. I suppose if he were able to hit her, it would have been bad for her but he wasn’t.
Turns out the guy was drunk and hassling a foreign couple, being a real asshole. This woman stepped up, he shoved her, she punched him and it was on!
You can say it’s because he was drunk but I’ve seen mean drunks beat people up before. This woman knew what she was doing and he didn’t.
I’ve taken martial arts classes myself and now understand how a smaller person with the right skills can easily control a larger opponent who does not have any training but relies on size and intimidation but it was eye opening to see it back then with this woman who looked harmless.
The theory being that timing and leverage count for vastly more than strength, bulk, mass, or reach. I dunno… As they say, quantity has a quality all its own. All the gorilla has to do is get his hands on one wrist, just once…and good night Irene.
Wrist locks are very easy to get out of. It’s the first thing we teach in women’s self-defense, because it’s the first thing men go for. We train with full-strength grabs, with large men grabbing to the point where the bones move, and we can get out pretty easily.
Choking can be much harder to get free from, despite there being several good techniques. The brain can easily freeze and go into panic mode, and by the time you get your composure you may have had your air or blood flow to your brain shut off for long enough to be woozy.
Hardcore women martial artists have told me that in their opinion, women can hold their own pretty well until the first well-connected punch to the head. I ask them if this is absolutely unique to women (it doesn’t seem as if it should be) and they don’t have a good answer.
I remember reading about a girl who was attacked and grabbed from behind while out jogging. Unfortunately for the man she was the reigning national judo champion for her weight, so she just went into auto pilot and shrugged him off on a reflex.
The first Jackass movie had a bit called “Getting Beat Up by a Girl” where one of those clowns got into the ring with a world champion woman Kickboxer. (Or Judo or something)
She kicked his ass. Best thing in the movie.
Something that causes problems when women fight is that while we usually hate each other, we want to kill and hurt, but most of us are trained to not hurt.
The first time I got into a physical fight, I pulled my punches. He didn’t and stomped all over me.
The second time, I totally kicked the idiot’s ass. I think I was able to do it because he didn’t expect me to fight back so hard.
We’ve had these threads many times before. The consensus from experienced martial artists (and I’m not one) seems to be that when you have a matchup like this with a large size and strength difference a woman might be able to dominate until it’s time for grappling or blows. If the guy is drunk or out of shape enough she might be able to inflict enough damage to take it, but if it goes to the floor and he gets his hands on her she’s on serious trouble regardless of martial arts prowess.
The same might be said for a larger vs smaller man matchup with a comparable size differential, but there are smaller men trained in the martial arts (esp boxers) who can land devastating knockout blows even in very tight quarters due to their huge upper body strength. The number of small (even trained) women who could do this probably very small.
Seriously. It looks like some shit out of an Angelina Jolie movie.
rrrrowr
I don’t think you are “trained” to not hurt so much as you are NOT trained to fight.
We men are trained not to hurt women from an early age. So much so that most men would typically just put their hands up to shield themselves and let you whale away with your tiny little fists until you get tired.
There is a reason boxers and wrestlers have weight classes. At 5’2" and 120 lbs, I have about 8" and 70 lbs on you. I wouldn’t even need to “fight” you. I could just pick you up like a toy doll and carry you away! Or grab you pinning your arms and trap you under a 190 lb bag of meat.
I don’t agree with most of what you said, but a general comment-
I think pretty much any determined woman could kick my ass because I don’t think I could get myself into a state of mind where I could hit her at all, let alone to seriously cause harm.
